Anchored on a Yacht with Characters in Marina del Rey

It started with a break-up. A woman, a girl really, who sent me packing. I was working on the TV show "House" on FOX, and the torment of constant production had taken its toll on yet another relationship.

I was used to living out of a few duffle bags and lodging in a motel in Culver City, “The El Astro”, which, by the way, is something everyone should do when they come to Hollywood from another state. Cool bungalow apartment-style living with clean sheets, cable TV, fully furnished kitchens, amazing transient neighbors, sexy maids, artists, freaks, war veterans, and all for $200 a week. It also had live music, classic bars and inexpensive restaurants within walking distance.

Ah, the benefits of the Westside of Los Angeles. But those details are for another story.

So to start this story, I met a girl who worked on the same TV show as me. A whirlwind romance ensued and I moved into her very nice home in West Hills. It worked for a while, then things got sideways in our relationship and I was thrown out.

Back to the El Astro Motel. I was fortunate enough to have a steady show biz job, and I signed on to West Side Rentals to find a place. By chance I saw a fascinating rental advertisement.

It went something like this: "State room on a 100 foot yacht for rent”.

I was more than interested.

Broken hearted and over-worked on a hit TV show, I felt like one of those desperate souls who join the French Foreign Legion when things get personally ugly and life gets too weird to explain.

A man feeling sorry for himself is universally despised and spit on as a pathetic scourge – whether you are in the French military fighting in a nameless desert or working in Hollywood on an unforgiving TV show – it is the same. No hope and very little respect.

It is an inner conflict from the start.

You just might happen to be some creep who hates himself for no good reason at all, but the fact is that you desperately want to do something, anything, that makes you feel like you can get away from the pain of life. You'll risk your self esteem to make some statement and express an emotion that represents a futile attempt at power and adventure and reaffirm yourself as a human being.

Desperation and torment and self-doubt are the elements of a cosmic dark matter that converts a boob of a man into a character that rises into the realm of epic possibilities.

And so it was for me.

I used my clout and resume and charm and a weekly sum of Sheckles and Drachmas and favors to positions myself into a New World.

Like a fool, I rented a room on a huge boat anchored at the City Club in Marina Del Rey.

And the weird adventure began.

I was met by a man named Ned. He led me through a series of locked gates, under the towers of glorious condominiums and down a gangplank onto a long stretch of dock, past many luxury boats. There were sail boats and speed boats, bizarre custom-made crafts where brown and leathery rich people peered out from their retirements with curious, sad, sallow eyes.

These freaks would be my neighbors for the next year.

At the end of the dock was a vessel right out of a Johnny Depp Disney flick.

Run down and in need of much work was an unnamed, custom made cement-and- steel pirate craft waiting for me. Climbing over the rails and onto the deck, an entrance hatch slid open and I descended into a dark interior.

The darkness inside smelled like a wet animal. Musty. Stanky. The reek of disease and slow death. “Apocalypse Now” imagery. This boat was leaking.

When my eyes adjusted I realized I was being watched.

Ned had a herd of dead animal heads, trophies, all staring at me with glassy dead eyeballs. Nice Persian rugs were underfoot, reeking of water damage. Antique furniture everywhere. Celebrity headshots, all framed and autographed. There was a hovering sense that something or someone important had been here and was coming back for unclaimed items or some elusive reasons.

You have all seen that beer commercial, about “The Most Interesting Man In The World”? This was the vibe. Old world charm and a sense of danger and wealth but coupled with sloth and regret.

I was shown to my room.

A beautiful young lady came out of the center stateroom. I was introduced and it was explained that she was moving out and I was to be the one to replace her. The look in this gal’s eyes told me that she was very uncomfortable in her digs. She said nice things about Ned and her other roommate before quickly and directly leaving.

The middle berth was small but elegant. Polished hard wood floors and closets and ceilings. The walls were river stones – real organic blue and black earth stones – smooth and exotic. Two portholes lined the cabin walls, constructed of brass and glass. A hatch in the roof had brass and steel locks that could seal me in, hermetically safe and sound against any storm or outside threat. This was a cool place to live.

The bathroom was more of the same.

Antique mirrors and brass and nautical relics. The shower was the best. A walk-in cave made of the same groovy river stones that adorned the rest of the boat. I had never showered in a stone cave before.

I was sold.

I was to stay in the middle berth of a really cool rustic yacht between two strangers, one man who lived in the front bow apartment, another one who lived in the stern apartment. I had the middle room right across from the cave-like bathroom.

For good luck there was a real buffalo head trophy on the wall that looked you in the eyes when you descended down the stairs from the top deck.

I had a deep-seated feeling that I would be able to live peacefully (and create) in this floating inner-sanctum. My personal troubles with girls and a maniacal job at a major studio now seemed trivial and laughable. Three gates and a personal cadre of armed guards separated me from the outside world. I had a secret security pass that let me move freely in and out of this isolated universe. The Four Seasons Hotel was a brief walk down the docks, a bartender named Levi who worked there charged me $15 for strong cocktails and promised me good things for free in the future.

Mega-yachts with Middle East and Russian registries loomed just across the way from my slip and topless women waved with wide smiles while spilling insanely expensive champagne from crystal flute glasses.

The police did not bother me anymore when I was driving home at three in the morning after a long 20 hour day at 20th Century Fox. They now knew I was one of the elite that paid their salary. Cops instinctively know who pays for protection in their neighborhoods and they know what undesirables need to be taken away.

For the first time in my life I was on the right side of “The Tracks”.

But then the laughing, gaping maw of fate made itself known.

Things got weird in a truly brutal way. It didn’t happen all at once, but as in all matters of fate, the Gods slipped in the lessons of life with ironic malice.

I got to realize that my roommates were pirates, businessmen with no sense of sanity. Strange women with axes to grind and grudges to settle were sneaking in. Paparazzi with cameras were stalking the docks. Men from former Soviet satellite states were waiting in the dark, inside the perimeter.

The cold glass eyes of the taxidermied animals now looked upon me with an ominous portent. I began wondering how they died and if I was to be next.

This is the story of living on a yacht in Marina Del Rey. This is a story of freaks in Venice. This is a true story. I barely got out with the shirt on my back.

To be continued ...